From Railroad Grunt to Software Architect: Navigating Massive Career Shifts | Unspoken with Mitch Wille

In this episode of Unspoken with Nick and Nick, the hosts sit down with Mitch to explore his "unique path" through a massive career transformation—moving from the gritty physical labor of railroad construction to the high-level strategy of software architecture. Mitch shares the candid reality of being a "grunt", swinging 10-pound sledges and learning through "pointing and grunting," before successfully navigating a career pivot into IT help desk support and business analysis. This conversation dives deep into the "yin and yang" of professional life, contrasting physical exhaustion with the mental exhaustion of vetting AI programs and building infrastructure. Beyond technical talk, the episode is packed with relatable life stories, covering the challenges of first-time fatherhood, the "Harry Potter closet" reality of IT departments, and an infamous, hilarious showdown with a protective goose. Whether you are looking for career growth inspiration or a laugh about the universal hatred of office printers, Mitch’s story of "keeping on" offers a powerful look at finding your worth in every walk of life.

Transcript

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Welcome to Unspoken, where everyone is the... Welcome back to another episode of Unspoken with Nick and Nick. We're back, baby. We are back. My name's still first on the thing. Dang it. There's just a thunderstorm going on. Hey, guy. Oh, yeah, there it is. It's just kids. Settle down. Your stupid shelf. Uh-oh. Why'd you break your shelf? So real... Oh, no. Real life just happened here in the studio. Which is also the basement. The basement, also known as where the kids' rooms are, which everything sounded like it just collapsed in this home. His shelf, man, it keeps falling off. We've got like these industrial piping things that come out of the wall. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the wood shelves on it. And I just haven't had a spare moment to put the little U-clamps in. Oh, yeah. And it keeps sliding off and it falls and it's pretty brutal. The whole series of events of the way he came out and was like, it's like, what? Then the other one comes out and he's like, the shelf, man. Yeah, yeah. Things, man. You're gonna have to deal with that. That was that was funny. Adversity. Sorry. Opportunity to learn for adversity. Actually, you know what? I'm not sorry. Now they all know it's real life up in here. That's true. They do. They know it's real life. It's just the way it is. And that's just part of it, isn't it? Yep. That's all you can do. That's all you can do. Anyways, Mitch. Yeah, Mitch. What's up, guys? How the heck's it going? It's going good. Awesome. We've been talking about this for a little bit. We have. You've been all up in my ear ever since we started. I just wanted to shout out. Miss the episode with which I gave you a shout out and then you got mad because you didn't hear the shout out. To be fair was when I listened to the second episode. Absolutely no words for that, Mitch. I'll get around to listening to it. Yeah, one day, one day before we jump into you, we have a really cool new feature. It's not really a new feature, but it's just something else that we threw in here. Where did you get it? The shirt? Yeah. My boy, Jeff Frank. Which Jeff is awesome. Jeff is awesome. Jeff is the head coach of Ottawa University's powerlifting team. And they are currently in Atlanta, Georgia competing at nationals. So shout out to my boy, Jeff and his whole team. I hope you all kill it. He came into the shop just to hang out the other day. Give me the shirt. So much love, much respect, and I hope you all kill it out there, man. Heck yeah. And we've talked to him too. He's going to be coming out at some point. He's going to be coming out. Yeah, he's going to be coming out at some point. So look forward to that. But wanted to give him a little bit of love there and throw that out. So supporting you, thinking about you. Hope you guys win as an Ottawa University graduate myself. There he is. Hell yeah. Yep. Hell yeah. Chess club, right? Chess team? Yes, exactly. That's what I thought. All four years varsity, man. Man, dude, I'm telling you. Here's the deal. Not everybody gets out of the chess squad. Okay? You can't just do that. Some real brain power, dude. That's right. And I was on esports, all of them. No, I was not. I'm actually really terrible at video games. That's actually not entirely true, but I'm not super good at video games. You see, I think we both gave you the same look. You definitely both gave me the same look. That's 100% sure. That's what just happened. But yeah, that's where we're at in life right now. At this exact moment, that is where we're at. I am not an esports expert. I'm not a powerlifting expert, but I did actually graduate from Otto. Can I give another shout out? I mean, yeah. To our boy, Ty. Yes, Ty. Ty, thank you, buddy. You're the man. Right now, I've got one of these nuke watermelons. Yep. And it's hitting. And he hooked us up with his little sign of his being here in spirit. He is here. With us always. Ty's the man. And he hooked us up with an awesome birdie stogie box. Love it. Hell yeah. I love it, man. Hell yeah. So we got some cool stuff there. So make sure to go check out Ty's website, Golfing Cigars. Yep. It'll be awesome. Actually, it's Green Side Cigars. Green Side. Yeah. Green Side. Yeah. I messed that one up. Sorry, Ty. I'm more of a triple bogey stogie guy myself because I'm a triple bogey kind of guy. I'm more of a just, if they're, he should add a just plus. And then anything that comes after plus. Snowman. They need a snowman cigar. They might have a snowman cigar. Okay, because. We need a look. We need a look. I can't remember who it was, but I know it was one of these times I was out golfing with my dad when I was younger, and I can't remember. It was a friend of his we were out with. And every single hole, he'd go, give me a snowman. Give me a snowman. And I know that's you, Mitch. It's find the ball for me. I have golf with you. Well, hey, man. What's up, Mitch? What's up, Mitch? Not much. I'm glad you're here, man. Yeah, dude. It's cool. Heck, yeah. Happy to be on. Hey. Oh, boy. Winston. There he is. More real life happening right now, folks. Here's the man. We got a dog running around. How are you going to let this happen? I know, man. It is not March and he has a green handkerchief on. Yeah. Isn't that cute? Crazy, crazy little monkey man. Those little bandanas, they drive me crazy though. Katie knows it too, but I leave them on because she likes them. You know, there's a lot worse things that can happen. Yeah. Do you put them in a rain jacket or anything for winter? Or like a winter coat? Little booties. Yeah. He is super fancy. He is. He's bougie, man. Fonse. Winston. Double-O Winston. Anyway, Mitch. What's up, man? You know the deal. Tell us a little bit about you. How's it going? How are you really? How are you really? Really. Oh, you know, it's just another day. Another day, another dollar. There you go. There you go. Yeah, that's going to really piss my wife off. That's some high quality H2O. That's going to make my wife so mad. I love you, Annie. He was going to spit in a cooler. That's right. Anyway, man, what's going on? Tell us a little bit about you. Tell all of our lucky listeners and viewers about you. The Mitchell. Well, I'm Mitch. Work with. You are Mitch. This Nick. I was told not to disclose. Even though I just did it to myself. Did you guys catch that? I did. We'll make it work. We'll make it work. You can edit that out, right? Yeah. Nick, you can edit everything out, right? So yeah. Sorry, Mitch. We do work together. We do work together. Yeah, man. Tell us a little bit about your story, your background. Because you've got you got a kind of a unique, I'm going to call it path to where from where you started to where you are. The kid who didn't know what he wanted to do. Yes, but that's a real thing. These are my kind of people because I was like that. Yeah. Early 20s didn't know what to do. Kind of took a gap year from school. Just kind of stumbled into a job at my old high school, going back and coaching football. Oh, sweet, man. You know, those kids that couldn't get over it and, you know, had to go back. Yeah, but you played ball. I played ball, but didn't know there was a position open. Got it. Started coaching. I said, you know what, I could see myself being a teacher and go in that path. So went back to school online. Shout out Fort Hayes Tigers. Never stepped foot on campus, but got my degree from them. My man. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with it. Then COVID hit and I was a para, still finishing graduation or graduating. But COVID hit, didn't know if I was going to be able to go back to the school, what all was going to happen there. And my dad was a railroader. And he's like, hey, I'm at this new company. It was a contractor doing new railroad construction. And he's just like, I can get you on as a grunt. I said, sure. Yeah, why not? Make money, go get my job, start kind of that. Thought that would be my career. But I just love that my first experience on the railroad was, all right, you're going to this job site in Iowa. Superintendent's going to go. So they drive me up to Iowa and they just drop me off on this job site. Superintendent goes back to KC and it's like, all right, follow these guys around. And it was a crew that did not speak a lot of English. So our communication and how I learned was a lot of pointing and grunting. Oh my gosh, man. You were stuck for a little bit. You were trying to figure out what you were doing on the fly. They pretty much just tossed you in the deep end and they're like, swim, swim, swim. Yes, I was there for, I was in Iowa for three straight weeks. Oh man, yeah, you were not kidding. This isn't like a joke of a job either. No, this isn't something you just do. No, you don't want that. Well, luckily it was in a rail yard. Okay, so you're at least in one spot. You weren't just traveling around. Right. It also was a rail yard for the first two weeks. We're finishing up a job and then we're like, oh, we're going to go back home. Sure. But then I was like, well, actually I need you and this other guy to go to this grain elevator and do some welding. I didn't know how to weld. I was just along for the ride. Oh my gosh, just make it happen. Let's just go weld. Yeah, so we left that job site, went straight to this other one. He did his thing. I just kind of sat, watched what do you need me to get and still green to the whole job. Then finally got to go home and I get home. My mom sees me and I wasn't prepared. We're in, oh, what was it? May, end of May, sun just beaten down. I had no sunscreen or anything. So I get home. I'm just ready to just lay down. Jacked and tanned. You look like Zach Efron from Baywatch when you got home three weeks later, didn't you? I wouldn't say Zach Efron tanned. I'd say like tomato, like Tom the tomato from Veggie Tales. More like The Rock. Tom the tomato. I was red. Hey man, you know, everybody has a little tan differently. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, I burn and then the tan kind of comes in. Comes in later. But I got to fry first. Oh, you know, I mean, that happens. Get the base coat. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, okay. So you got tossed into the deep end? Yep. Very much so. That's obviously that's not easy. Like, what came next? Like, when were you just like, well, guess I'll be heading on back home. Well, so I stayed with that company for, I think, till the end of the year. And I mean, jumping into the deep end, learned a lot fast, was with a lot of good crews where they could teach me what I need to do. Luckily, there was another guy who was about my age. His name was Christian and he was fluent in English and Spanish. Oh, cool. Yeah. So he was kind of able to tell me what they were saying. Sure. I could at least talk to him and he could explain it to me as we went. So he was great, but stayed with that company for a little bit and then took a risk and went with another company because they wanted to start a railroad construction division. So a lot of engineering and safety, like flagging on the railroad and everything. But they wanted to start a construction side of it. So I went with them for a project management position. And then three, maybe three, four months after that, they're like, we're shutting this down. Cool. Closing the Kansas City office that we just opened. You're laid off. So I spent about three months unemployed. My aunt worked at the company I'm currently at. And it was in the IT department. Nice. She was like, we have this internship. Not saying you'll get a full-time job off of it, but apply, see what happens. So got the internship. Yeah, learn something. See if you even like it. I mean, I didn't get into IT because I'm technical. I like technology, but my brain does not work exactly like that. Sure. So help desk, internship, turn into a full-time position on the internship. Now, business analyst. Yeah, which is a wild path if you think about it. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, there's a lot of differences too in the jobs, but there's a lot of similarities. I think that, truthfully, you were told you were tossed in. You're doing a bunch of grunt work, which honestly helped us, especially interns and help desk. It's like, go learn. Just go figure it out. I hate printers to this day. Dude, everybody hates printers. Everybody does. Printers hate printers. That's what they fed the interns. Yeah. It's like, oh, we're going to start giving you tickets. Okay, cool. I'm going to start learning a bunch of new things. I'm not surprised at all. Million printer tickets. I can't connect. It's not connecting. Oh my lord. Printers are so dumb. They're so difficult. And it's like nothing's ever the same. No two printers act the same way. Same company, same model. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Not always the same model. What was your big shift? I mean, obviously, it was a little bit of float room. Like you said, it wasn't like you were out looking for an IT job. You ended up in an IT job. But what was it like when you got from railroad to IT and how that became a big shift? I mean, I would consider almost polar opposites, truthfully. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. So and this is coming from somebody. I do not know anything about railroad work. Like zero. I know that trains go on tracks and that somebody has to put the track down and that somewhere there's electronics that happen. That's pretty much my knowledge of trains. I mean, there's some more. That's the generalized version. You have the gist of it. Yeah. That's exactly how it is. But I mean, you were doing a lot of very difficult physical labor for the most part at first, right? Swing in 10 pound sledges, 20 pound sledges every day. No big deal. So you did come back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just thinking that too. Dude came back jacked. So jacked. He just walked around flexing all over the place. Wait, was it more like a Derek Zoolander situation? Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. How was it? I got the black lung pop. No, that's exactly how it was. That was exactly how it was. You're pretty dramatic. I can see it. You're not wrong. That's a wild ride though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, so what was that like? I mean, because it was a big transition. Totally different. Yeah, no, it was. But also still hard because I mean, in a lot of ways, you're doing a lot of like very mental, like heavy think work in IT. Oh, yeah. No, it's railroad physically exhausted. Sure. IT mentally exhausted every day to where there were points where I was like, you know, I kind of miss railroading and just my body being tired or sore. But at least it's for the most part, I guess for the lack of a better way to phrase it, just dead in your mind. It's like just tedious work. Like go lay out these clips. I have like a mile of track that I'm just walking with a bag setting clips out and then go back and hit so we can connect the rail to the tie. So it's just mentally, you don't have to think a lot. Yeah. Just a lot of go do this. And it's just a task that could take up half the day or the whole day. Yeah, the setup is thinkless. Yeah. And the actual doing is exhausting. Yes. Yeah. I mean, there was a day on the railroad. It was my first day manually putting spikes in where that's the day you get made fun of. The spikes, the spike, like go. Yeah, the railroad spikes that connect into the. Yeah, I got you. Okay. That's the day where all the green railroad workers get made fun of because nobody swings it right the first time. Sure. Like you can practice all you want. And like, you know, that was one of the things my first week on the job. They're like, oh, yeah, here's just a tie we pulled. And like, here's a railroad spike. Just go hit it. Yeah. No kidding. You try to watch and get down the technique. But the first day I did it, you know, I thought it was cool. I was hitting them in and somebody filmed me. And I saw that video the next day. I was like, I look like I have no idea what I'm doing. That's hilarious, man. It's stiff. But there was a day where we did that for the full day. And I remember the next day, like I couldn't open my hands because they were just like, oh, yeah, that handle. And it just they were dead. They were sore. Yeah, there was bruising. But it was not fun. That part's not fun. Probably had a grip of steel after that. That more like could never grip right again. Blowing out all kinds of nerve damage and everything. Right. Hey, man, it makes sense, though. I mean, then because I mean, that's like I said, you know, that was a lot of physical work. And then you get into a lot of think work. Like, what was what was that like? That first, let's just say like that first month when you're like, because I remember my first month in IT and I was literally like, oh, my gosh. I remember coming home and telling Annie, I'm like, my brain hurts in a way that I can't explain. And this is after this is after going to college. Like this is ever going to college and my master's degree. Really having like my first like real tech job. There's so much like unknown. What did you get? Did you get your degree in an IT related field? No, no business communications. OK, yeah. And then my my master's in cybersecurity. OK, yeah. Oh, so a little bit. Well, I mean, yeah, I have I have a technical degree for sure. So there's a lot. I mean, it was a lot of think work that went into that. But then there's there's two sides of that, right? Like there's like practical and theoretical. Right. But no amount of schoolwork will ever train you. Yeah, right. Like, exactly. It's just not the same when you're actually doing it in a real environment. 100%. And there's a real people doing real things. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, take it for example, like you can go. Let's just say, for example, you're in your military training, right? You can go shoot at a target all day, but it doesn't shoot back. Bingo. And I don't know anything about it other than that. I don't. And the target gives me time to reload. Yeah. There's there's these practical applications, right? Like, yeah, it's not shooting at me. I get time to reload. I can factor the wind with my little Kentucky windage. You know, I looked my finger and go, OK, cool. You get to think about that stuff in practical application. So I can I'm with you. Right. Yeah. This is I just can't get over the like straight up all physical to all mental. Yes. Like that's got to be just a mind. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's like yin and yang, right? Like you're literally the exact. Well, in two different sides of the brain working for so long over here. And then you go, oh, never mind. I'm going to shake this up a little bit, which is cool, because I think it makes you more well-rounded individual in the long run. Right. Like it pays dividends. But wow. Did you ever have to go like a little office spacey and, you know, take the printer out back and hit it with one of your railroad hammers? You're totally stealing a question from me right now. I wish. But no, I didn't want to, A, get fired and B, have to pay to replace that printer. Yeah, I mean, that's fair. I think I'd rather. But it would be cool. I should have found one that they decommissioned and just taken that out back. Exactly. Exactly. If you ever find that, let's go. Yeah, I'll let you know. Because I'll go. I'll go hit one with you. Oh, that'd be fun. I don't even have any animosity at a printer. Go to a rage room, it sounds like. Let's just send you over to the rage room. Rage rooms are a riot. Have you ever been to one? No. Oh, my gosh. I would love to go to that. Yeah, look at Madden right now. He's like all smiles. So that's what actually happened to your shelf on your wall. You were swinging your bat at it. Oh, that checks out. Yeah, yeah. They're brothers. Classic. Classic dudes being guys. Just guys being dudes. Rage rooms are a riot. That sounds awesome. I took the boys, the one down south here, and we had friends of ours in town, and we took their kids too. Oh, my gosh, man. It's like glass bottles everywhere. You can throw them. You can hit them with hammers. You can get wrenches. Dude, you can hit hot water heaters. Yes. It's a riot. And there was a printer in there that day. See, I'm all for that. But the kids got to it before me. That is just wrong. At least they were smart enough, though. They realized, what if you open the top? Oh, yeah, we'll break that glass. Bam. Wham. Yeah, nothing's better than people that are just like delicate in there. They're like, I know. Something doesn't break. Then all of a sudden they hit it. Oh, crap. That's what we need. Madden, at the end of it, he found he did find a bottle that hadn't been broken yet. The guy is in there telling us, you know, time's up. Hope you all had fun. Right over my head, this bottle flies and he cracks it over the wall. And I turn around. I'm like, it's over. What are you doing? Like for that bottle, it is. It is over. It was hilarious, man. Awesome, dude. OK, so that that is a. There's a lot there, right? Like there's a lot of there's a lot of transition stuff there. Yes. How different is it now? Because you're new to this role. How do you even explain? I'm still caught up in the. I guess, Nick, to your question. Yeah. You said what was the first month like? Yeah. Yeah, it was it. It took like a full year to just get my head above water. Yeah. Then, you know, going to the second year, you kind of understand it a lot more and you can just keep moving and progressing. And, you know, by year three, now I'm one. Everybody else kind of either got promoted or left. So now three years in, I'm one of the more tenured people. Sure. That's still there. And in the help desk role. Right. Do you do you feel tenured? Do you feel like you've got a grasp? When it's funny because we have this other coworker who he got promoted a couple months ago as well. So he kind of got promoted to a manager role and then I kind of backfilled his spot in the two role. And so he kind of went through everything I was currently going through as in being there for so long and just having new faces come in. They ask you a lot of questions. And so now I'm not only doing my job, I'm helping them do theirs and teach them to where I think I told you this, Nick, where I went to him one day and I was like, I think I know what you're going to say. Yes. I was like, how do you get through this? How do you do this? Because I am so mentally drained at the end of the day. I just can't do anything. He's like, oh, well, you know, I find a nice beverage at the end of the day and I was like, I don't know if I want to just start drinking every night when I get home. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that you learn that it almost feels, I mean, it's 100% the drinking from a fire hose scenario. I was just thinking that, yeah. And it's not easy. So I totally get where you're coming from. Yeah. Especially in an industry like you two are in, right, with that more technical side, it's ever evolving, right? So you think, oh, I know everything now. Oh, shit, everything just changed on me overnight. Well, and this is why I want to get more into it because now in your world, it's really changing all the time because so he's in architecture now and not physical architecture, infrastructural architecture and software architecture, which means in this case that you're having potentially a change every day that could be something new. Yes, I mean, it's still new to the role. So it's still ingesting everything, but I'm living in application requests. Hey, we found this awesome new AI program that we can plug into Teams and we want to use this. Okay, well, now I have to go through, kind of vet it, collect information on it. And then I have to pass it off to our security team because we've got to make sure there's no risk there. And then, you know, work with our asset team to make sure that we get the license the right way, get the right ones, make sure they go to the right people, make sure we package it so everybody can get it. So I get to see all these crazy new softwares that people are just finding and suggesting. No kidding. Yeah, well, and an additional layer to that is now because I think what it looks like for you today and let's just say a year from now is you're actually trying to make sure that anything that we put into the environment is not going to A, mimic anything else that we've got and B, it's not going to hinder anything else that we've got. Wow. So the amount of connections, it's literally like muscles, man. Like the way that technology works, it's literally just overlaid like this, right? So, you know, you have so much that potentially could go wrong. So like, you're like, you're literally putting your stamp on it that like, this is going to go right. And if it doesn't, I am committing to fixing the problem. Wow, man. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that's an interesting transition too because now you kind of like, your fate kind of lies in your own hands a little more than it did before in the help desk role, which I mean, of course, you move through a bunch of different levels in help desk. But the reality with that was it was a lot of, it becomes a lot of reactive work where now you get to be more proactive and more creative. Well, and it almost feels like on the help desk, it's kind of smaller issues. Nothing's really a small issue in IT. Right, right. But it's like, I'm helping one user with this specific problem. Sure. In this new role, very quickly found, hey, we're asking about this very specific process and how this will work for our entire building. Right. It's like, okay, well now I have to figure out this aspect and now, okay, I figured that out, but will it work, this work, and just kind of going all over the place and it's a much bigger picture. So you legitimately went from physical labor to help desk to meaning my printer won't link to my computer. Now the whole building might fall apart. Yes. For the most part, that's pretty much what it is. Holy crap, man. That's a lot, dude. Oh yeah, it's crazy. And I've said this a lot to a lot of my coworkers. One, being on help desk, I felt like I did three years of just remedial Spanish and then I get thrown into this new role. That's a great analogy, man. Yeah, I like that. I get thrown into this new role and all of a sudden I'm getting thrown into meetings. Thanks, Nick. Yeah, you're welcome. Getting thrown into meetings where I'm like six meetings behind and they're talking about all this new stuff and I'm just sitting there. I'm like, I feel like I'm now in AP Spanish. Like I'm getting bits and pieces of it, but I'm not understanding the picture. Yeah, that's fair. So I'm just having to learn really quick or ask a lot of questions also. Thank you, Nick. Yeah, you're welcome. Shout out to the PMO team and everyone else. That's a lot to stomach, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's rough. And realistically, something that... I mean, people realize it, but they don't really realize it is the amount of connectivity we have across literally the entire United States, right? Like this is a lot of companies that have this kind of stuff set up, right? So it's the reality that what you're doing, and honestly, the scale of what we do versus the size of our team is not like immensely huge. So you have a lot that can be done. And then there's other things that you're like, I just am throwing this in the backlog. Like there's no way I'm going to get to this. So now you get the opportunity to say again, what you're going to do and prioritize it. And then the things that you think are actually going to impact the business level to make a big difference, right? Whereas before it was a lot of people telling you just like, go to a thing, go to a thing, go to a thing. So now you get to kind of manage your day more. And I mean, you even talked about it today. Your boss jumped over and he's like, this is awesome. Like you showed him a thing you did and it was like, this is really cool. Which not that you didn't get to do that before, but the level of involvement. What I did helps him out in the long run. 100%. But you've done some process building when you were on Help Desk too. So it's like the reality is that now you get to see at scale how much it's going to do. And again, that's not taking away from what you did at the Help Desk. You maybe don't get to see it in action as much. Well, on the Help Desk, it just helped the Help Desk. What this will do will help a couple other departments within IT and how they kind of do this process. I'm hoping to make everything quicker. Make it so it's more organized because it's kind of been chaos since I've come in. Just the process they put in was kind of quick as we were changing over from different softwares. And he told me day one when he reached out to me and he was like... So I randomly got a message from him on Teams like a month before I got the position where he was just like, hey, what do you think about this? And he sent me a link to the job. And I was like, oh no, yeah, I'm interested. And he's like, okay, well, let's meet and talk. Well, it was right before Christmas. So I was gone for the week of Christmas then he was gone the week after. So three weeks after that, we sat down and he's like, all right, so have you looked at the job description and everything? I'm like, yes, but I want to get your version of it. So I was like, what's in the job description is very basic and generic. I was like, I know you have your own twist you want to put on it. So he sat down and just kind of explained the role to me. And I remember my first question was, do I need to know any coding or how technical do I need to be? Because if you need somebody that's technical, I'm just not your guy. He's like, oh no, it's fine. Somebody who knows the company's processes systems has been there for a while. And then he straight out said like, it's going to be chaos because you're going to live in this system. And I'm going to make you live in it. So you can see all the pain points and then come up with the process. Originally, I didn't think I was going to be able to start implementing anything with that till like June. Okay. And I had some free time. So I was like, I need to be busy. So I sat down and just kind of made a flow chart, mapped everything out and then ran into him today or just kind of pulled it. That's awesome, man. Let me show you this. He's like, oh no, love that. Just get final buy in and let's do it. I was like, no, I love that because it's kind of make my job a lot easier now. Yeah, no, good for you, man. And like, how cool too, to be able to like, because what you're doing is not... There's a lot of very technical aspects to it, right? You are doing technical things a lot and you'll do more of those as you continue to grow in the role, right? But the reality is, is at the onset, the important thing for you was he was like, I trust you because you've done so much in the role you are in today. And I want to bring you into this role now, which says a lot, A, about your character and B, about the work product that you're giving out. Yeah, that's awesome. That's important. So that's really cool. So, you know, pretty good there. The other running joke that we had on the help desk is that I was just a personality hire. Oh, yeah. Nick, you know what I'm talking about. That's hilarious. We've said it before, you know. We've said it before. It's out there. Man, he's pretty smart. He is pretty. Another pretty face. They just want me for my body. But that was part of it is he's like, we also want somebody that already has a relationship with everybody and all the other teams. Yes, which is a huge benefit for that role. Huge benefit for that role. Well, the amount of things that you are doing with other like other teams outside of IT, there's a lot. And maybe not like as of right today, you probably haven't done like a ton, but like you will do a lot, which is helpful. So that's really cool. That's awesome, man. What? It's it's formulating in there. Can I say something real quick? Yeah. I just I just want to give a shout out to all the intelligence out there in the military, especially in the Marine Corps. Oh, yeah. All of you that I yelled at and I said that you were worthless individuals and you were chickens. Yeah, we're going to turn off your pew pew. I'm seeing exactly what you all went through. Oops. I'm sorry. Well, but this is I mean, that's it. That's a testament, though, right? Yeah. I don't know what other people do. So like it's hard because and I mean, we've all done it. We've all crapped on other roles before. Like everybody's been in the position where they're like, well, they don't do anything. And that's not like that mostly comes from a place of frustration. Yeah, it does. It does. So like most people are not very like, of course, there's bad eggs, but like most people are not really like super pissed off all the time that this doesn't happen. But you know, it's like the most important thing is them to that person is that my thing works now. It's like I talk about it a lot. Like if I get into my car and I go to start my car, my car doesn't start. That's not good. That's a problem. So in order for me to be productive today, I need my car to start. It's the same concept for people that are doing what they need to do within companies or in the military. If I'm doing this thing and I can't do it, that's a problem. It's a problem. But like I think the reality is, is like just understanding that people are, people are doing what they're really good at for the most part. Yeah, exactly. Again, bad eggs exist. So some people just kind of fell into it and they just can't do some of the things they do. But like, yeah, they, there is a lot that goes into people's jobs. And if you don't know that, don't crap. Just don't comment. Just don't crap. Right. If you comment, just say good job. Yeah. Because here I am. I'm just going to say good job. Right. Because I am so outside of my comfort zone in this industry. Sure. You know, I, there are things I'm really good at and technology is not one of them. Sure. So I'm sitting here like a kid in a candy store listening to you two go on and on about programs and whatever's. And it's neat to me. Like there's a lot more. Yeah. But your story alone in particular, I've never, I have friends that are in technology too back home in Michigan. Sure. And, but they didn't go from like looking like Zoolander, you know, working on a railroad. Right. Yeah. That's one hell of a journey, man. You know. It is. And I think a lot of people would say that about me too or any of us really, you know, and you. Sure. But damn, that there's like this competitive little monster in your head, isn't there? Like you're. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I would definitely argue that like, so it's almost like I think there's been a transition over a number of years where like people think that, you know, IT is like the kids in the basement, which funny enough, we literally are at this moment. Sure. Help desk is in a closet, so. That's true. That's true. That's a real thing. They converted a supply closet. You have got to be kidding me. Into the new help desk zone. That's a real thing. No, man. Well, and one of my roles when I was in a building, it was literally I was like the Harry Potter kid. Like it was a staircase and under that staircase was a literal broom closet with I mean, maybe it maybe was like a four and a half feet ceiling on one of that. So like as the stairs came down, I had an angle on the on the ceiling. So you were like in my little fallout shelter over here. Yeah. So there's an angle and then it gets to the landing pad of the stairs. Yeah. And that's I mean, that was the height of that. Oh, get out of here. So I had I had that space and then I had what was the angle left to actually exist in as a full size human. So if I that was just my storage space and then my desk was over here. Get out of here. What it was like that's when people came to me for tech help was in literally this little tiny Harry Potter closet. Get out of here. But I feel like that's most IT departments. Right. And a lot of times that's OK. And a lot of times it's not OK. But I mean, that's kind of the point, right? Is like that's what the thought is, is that it's like it's easy for people to just think that we're just, you know, the people that are just nerds in the basement that don't ever come out and do anything. We're in reality. With college football player, college baseball player, you know, like all of these levels, things that change and a lot of times like OK, let's take for example, if you go down our row, one guy was in Junior Nationals, Junior Worlds, I think actually for boxing. Get out of here. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. So I mean, it's and it's been a while, but like great athlete. Another guy played college golf, like incredible athlete there. I mean, there's all kinds of people as you go down like the list of our of our team. And so a lot of really competitive people in technology. That's crazy. Cool. Yeah. They're like just no quit. Like, and a lot of times it's just like beat your head on the wall with technology. Well, also the boxer has an interesting story as well. Oh, yes. I'd have to get absolutely. I've talked to him. I've talked to him about it. I want to. All right. I can get he also has a good story. Kind of got a good story. OK, so it is good. I do like the story, man. That's pretty incredible. This is wild. Yeah, he is like full on wild story. To hear him tell this story is pretty crazy. That's that's a good. That's a good idea. I've talked to him. Sounds like we should have brought both Mitch and I tried. I said, hey, man, cool. Hop on here with us and he's doing it now. I'm just going to go home. Well, maybe we can phone you in or something. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's a friend friend. There you go. But yeah, man, so it's really cool. So yeah, new to the role. You got you got a lot there. And do you want to do anything else? I mean, it's hard to say that today because you just got into the role. But like if you were to say, like, this is what you do today. Right. What would the next step look like? I think just keep climbing. I think, you know, everybody kind of has that aspiration to keep climbing up the corporate ladder. Right. Sure. Always improve, always better. And it's just fun to learn new things. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I love learning railroading and I was in a working in a school as a pair while I was finishing up my degree. So being a pair, you know, you get to float. So I was with every grade level from pre-K up to eighth grade. So just just for clarity's sake, anybody that doesn't know what that means. What were you doing as a para? It's a para educator. Para professional. Yeah. So I would just kind of go in and pull groups of kids for one on one lessons, just kind of help them with stations. Like they'd rotate like the station you're doing math, the station you're doing reading. So I might help a teacher do that. Worked with kids with learning disabilities. So, you know, kind of pull and they get a little extra one on one time to kind of help them. So doing stuff like that. But then just kind of growing in that role or really just kind of growing in the school. I was doing that. They needed somebody to watch over the cafeteria for all the grade levels because teachers didn't want to do it. Special teachers didn't want to do it. Like who will do it? Now just go grab Mitch. So I ended up doing that. They wanted to separate the kindergarten gym class from the regular, what is it? First through eighth. Give her a break because otherwise she wouldn't have had a planned time or anything like that. Sure. So like, hey, Mitch, you want to do kindergarten P. Heck yeah. Sounds like a blast to me. Maintenance would help with that from time to time. Maintenance guy needed help. So jack of all trades in the school, man. I love it. And it was something fun because you get to learn something new every day. It makes you more valuable. So it's harder to get rid of you if that decision ever has to come. It's rewarding on your end too because you get to meet all these kids, all walks of life. Full disclosure, man, when I was in, I think I was in how much? Late elementary school and middle school, I had to be part of a special reading group. Sure. And a para ran that. And I remember it was mostly for the comprehension side of things. I'm a Marine. We're slow. You got to draw us pictures, but when we get it, we get it. Right. But no, all seriousness, I had to have that and it was nice. But that's really cool. You kind of hit the jack of all trades. Man, your story. Holy cow. I've had multiple careers in my lifetime. That's cool, though. Well-rounded individual. You're kind of the master of all, right? Well, I think that's the whole point. I think that's what's important to understand. And we've talked about this because I remember when you were talking about it at the beginning, you're like, I don't really have a whole lot. That's like, I'm not like a business owner. I'm not doing this. That's not what it's about. Nick texted me and he said that and we were both like, that's what this is about. We don't care the walk of life. We don't care what you do. We don't care how much money you make. We want you here telling your story. So I can sit here and eat my popcorn, man. Hear these cool needs from the start to now. This is cool. And I think this is such a great example and in a lot of ways is exemplifying the show better than potentially any of the other guests we've had so far because nobody gets to hear your story. Let's just say down the road, if a company owner takes off, their company gets big, there's a very good chance that somebody's going to know who that is or their story behind where they got there, or they just have interviews all over the place. It's not the case that this doesn't happen to everybody, right? So in your role right now, it's unlikely it's going to be like, Mitch, can we interview you? It's the same with me. Nobody's going to come down to my desk and be like, Nick, can I interview you right now? You get to do the interview right now. So if the moon hits me just right, I'm pretty damn tasty. Otherwise, you know, the reality is that it's just more important to understand people as people. We say it all the time and that is a really important feature. So it's cool to hear the whole thing. And I mean, we've talked about it a bunch. And I mean, I think like in the first couple of days, we connected on the fact that we have like a bunch of background that's the same from friends and where we grew up. That's right. Yeah. Growing up down there and a lot of people we know are the same friends and things like that. And, you know, you went to school where I had tons of friends there. And small world, man. It's cool world. Yeah. Also true. Also a lot of kids, a lot of kids. That's awesome, dude. That's awesome. If you were to tell little Mitch something, you were to go back and have a conversation with little Mitch about what life is going to be like in the future. What would you tell him? Just continue to put your head down and grind. You're eventually going to find it. Yeah. Like it's perfect. Yeah. I mean, it's true, though, right? Like, I think a lot of times people put a lot of pressure on themselves, especially young kids too. You know, maybe like the high school age kids, they put a lot of pressure on themselves, potentially from parents putting pressure on them, which is possible as well. But I think the reality is that all of those external factors and it makes it kind of difficult. So if you don't know, I mean, it's almost like high school has become like, what are you going to do with your future? But here's a fun question. If you were to go back. Yeah. And you were to tell little Nick what you do currently. Oh, no, no chance. What did little Nick want to be? Well, little Nick wanted to be, you know, he just wanted to be a baseball player. That's all he wanted to do. And then vice versa, if we go over here, if he went back and you told him like what you do currently, what did you want to be when you were growing up? So growing up, it was a pilot. Yeah. Yeah. And I did attain that. But I'm a barber, right? It's very different now. Very different, you know, and that's what's neat too is because we've opened your story up and now we get a little bit of time to open up our store. How different we all the roads we really took. Yes. And I think you and I have a lot in common from the physical aspect to the not so. Yeah, I'm standing and I'm holding clippers, but it's not physical. It is more mental. And I think barbering too will get to you if you let it. Because you are kind of on this stage and your game's got to be on. And your people skills have to be on. And if your dog wasn't listening to you in the morning or your kids and you're really mad when I go through those doors, like, can't bring it. Yeah, you can't go all Sweeney Todd on your clients. Right? Which is a lot like you guys. You can't go in there and bring home in there and expect to be productive. No. Exactly. Yeah. Well, in a lot of ways too, it's just in general. Like I think that there's a lot to that and I think part of that is A, be a decent person. Be a decent person. And B, my wife will laugh at this. I do not like traffic jams. Nope. I was thinking that on the way over when I got cut off twice. Yeah. On K-10. Yeah, that's true. The other day I drove past him. No, it wasn't on K-10. He flipped me the bird. That is not true. That did not happen. That is so not true. But I did flex at him. I love it. With the finger up. That's not true. He's just lying. Now I got to tell everybody that it's lying, Mitch. Listen, there's no way to prove me wrong or right. It's true. They're just going to have to trust me that I'm a really swell guy. He flipped me off. He flipped him off. Yeah, man. It's a cool story. So I appreciate you telling that. Kind of start to finish. I like that. I mean, there's just a lot of layers, right? Like that's what it's all about. You're just like an ogre and an ogre is like an onion and there's just so many layers. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to put that on a t-shirt. All right, we'll be back. We're back. Winston's back. Yay, we're back. That tea was good. So good. Good job, Winston. What voice do you think Winston would have, Mitch? Do you want me to do the voice? Yes, I do. Yeah, we need you to do the voice. I want you to do the Winston voice. As he lays here like the goodest boy. Winston, get off of that. He's licking himself. Gross. I don't know if I can do the voice. You have to. I have to. Yeah, what does he sound like? Now I know where you get this in the huddles. He asked the most random questions when it's all of IT. He sits up there and somebody goes up. He puts them on the spot. If you were a mythical creature, what would you be and what sound would you make? So let me ask you that question. Let's put you on the spot, Nick. I've answered this multiple times. I would be a centaur because I would be drop dead sexy and I would just sound like me. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but I would be fast and jacked. I could run a sub two minute mile. I could probably lift a house 10 times. No big deal, man. So don't be coming at me all sideways. Everything that I ask, I have a calculated answer. I know. He is right, though. I do. I host this meeting. This is great apartment and I'll just pick people out of the crowd. Dude, how cool is that, though? Because you're getting the most genuine. You get into the inner parts of their soul and brain without them even realizing because they're telling you everything about their personality when they answer it. I mean, I got lots of ideas. I was thinking maybe like a t-shirt cannon coming out. Dude, that's awesome. We sit too close for you to do that. That's true. It's not a huge hit. That would be pretty cool. What happened to Jim? He's no longer with us. T-shirt cannon incident to the dome. He's gone. That's awesome. That is awesome. So do the Winston. Do the Winston. I wish I could do a Donald Duck voice because that's what I would do. That's what you think. That's what you think, Winston. No, I just think it'd be cool to be able to do that voice. Do your version. I don't want to do this justice to Donald Duck. All right. You're really hurting Winston's feelings here. Winston. What do you sound like, dude? I think Winston sounds like British butler named Jeeves. British butler named Jeeves. Yeah, I think so, too. Tea time. Tea time. Yeah, you're going to be like, you're right. I do. He thought it was his inner monologue going off. All right. So Mitchell, Mitchell, Mitchell. It's very important to me that we understand more about you. Of course. Who is Mitch, really? We know what Mitch is, but who is Mitch? Who is Mitch? A saga. You have such a radio voice. He does, doesn't he? That's why I had a radio show in college. Especially hearing it in your ear live. Yeah, I do. That's right. And if I was on a late night show, I'd be like, oh, what's up, everybody? Welcome to Late Night with Dr. Smooth. Mine would be Ladies Man. We all remember Ladies Man. Got my Cavatier. Got my Cognac Cavatier. Can I make you a fifth sandwich? Chlamydia is a thoop. That is a wild tangent we could go on for a very long time. Like a very long time. And that might be the second time we've actually done that. Thank you. That's hilarious. But it's true. It's true. So who is Mitch? Are you Dr. Smooth? No, not at all. OK, well, then let's just say that you had a late night radio show. What would your radio show be called? And what would be your DJ name? DJ? No, I don't know if I like that one. No, I'm not trying to go with my last name. A lot of fun stuff we could use with that. That's fair. So I'm going to have to rethink that. What's the name of the street that you grew up on? I will. Yeah, there you go. Neo Show. DJ Neo Show. Have you seen the radio shows with... There's one specifically I've seen on social media. I have seen very few radio shows. You're on social media. Everything to TikTok or Instagram Reels. Where they... It's like a first date segment. So somebody... Yes, yes, yes. You know what I'm talking about? Yep, I know what you're talking about. I'd love to do something like that. OK. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so what would it be called? It would just be called Mitch's First Day Stepman with DJ... I don't know. You know, the more you say it, the more it kind of rings. You know, I mean, there's a way worse DJ name. Way worse DJ names out there. But when you say it, you got to use the soundboard. That's true. There's some different effects with it. Yeah, that's fair. You make it work. We can make it work. We can make it work. Make it work. Later in the day, we'll make it work. We'll figure that out. All right, back to the real question. Who's Mitch? What makes you tick? What gives you life, man? What makes you feel things? What helps you unwind? What makes you cry? Yeah. You know, being a first time dad now. Yes. Nice. Got the little one at home. Awesome. Love every second of that. How old? He is... I hate using months when you're over a year. So we'll just say he's a year... Two months past, so he turned a year in February. Yeah. 13, 14-ish months right now. Yeah. I just... I hate, like, kind of... How old's your kid? 28 months. Yeah, but it's not like he's still breastfeeding or something. Do you remember the movie Grown Ups? When the kid's breastfeeding? How old's your kid? 48 months. That's four. That's four. Exactly. So I guess if a little man's still breastfeeding at, you know, 48 months, you might say that. I guess that's a circumstantial thing. It's like the hardest, the most beautiful, and cool, and fun thing you'll ever do is be a dad. Oh, yeah. That's true. And for moms to be moms, right? Like, just to be a parent. Yeah. It's really neat, man. It does change you. Oh, yeah. No, 100%. You know, when you didn't have kids and you're sitting there and you're in a movie or you're in church or something and you just hear a kid crying, you're like, God, shut that kid up. But then when your kid cries, it's like something switches in your brain. You're like, oh, I just want to soothe you and calm you down. I'm more lenient towards that now. And then just that aspect of it, you just kind of want to protect them and make sure they're always comfortable and just kind of do that switch. Like, there's no getting mad at him, especially being this young. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. You know, so there's a shift that I think happens. Like, when it was just my wife and I, like I love my wife more than anything. I still do. That's not the change. But now I know what it's like to really be like the protector of all things within my domain. Would you fight a goose? Oh, there's got to be a story here and I like where this is going. You brought up the goose thing. Of course I brought up the goose thing. All right, so let's get into it. So we were just walking down the street, okay? Walking down the street. And it was my sister-in-law with her two babies and they were in their double stroller. And then I was walking with my two babies and they were in their double stroller. Anyway, what happened was we're walking by this like river walk, right? And there's two geese standing there as we go under this bridge and it narrows fairly significantly going under this bridge on the sidewalk. Well, my sister-in-law takes her kids. They go and my wife goes with them. And this goose is standing there hissing at them. So I back up and they can't see me anymore. They're at the other end of this bridge. They can't see me around this wall. And they're like, what the hell? Where are you? So I'm having a conversation with this goose and I was like, here's the deal. I'm coming for you. You're not going to hiss at my babies. It's going to John Wick this goose. Yeah, I was ready to put on some eye black and you know, take this goose out, right? Like the reality was, is it was very quickly. Yes, it was very quickly becoming a situation of my kids or the goose. The goose was going to lose. Oh my gosh. I don't know. I will 100% go to the hospital for my babies over a goose. Absolutely. Better attack you than your babies. It's not going to get my babies. That's the key is it's not getting my babies. I just want to see you coming to work one day covered in goose bites. You should see the other guy. But for real, I was in it and it I mean, it's sitting there looking at me, hissing at us and I was like, this is this is not going to go the way you want it to go. There's some evil creatures, man. And I'm in this coming from someone who's never, I don't hunt. I'm not in the I'm going to go and just like take out. Like you talked about. Like I was not like a shoot things with a BB gun. That was not like it's not me, right? So I don't know. Like I don't think like a goose has like a pressure point or like some headlock maneuver that I can put them in. But it was one of those scenarios where like at some point I was like, if I get a hold of you and your neck, it's over. He said he was going to start swinging around and hitting up with it because it's buddy was standing there being an abler. Well, shit and yeah, he's over there. He's like, yeah, get him, get him. No, no, he's going to get got. That's what's going to happen. I was I was out for blood with that goose. And then somebody comes in. They heard this. They heard me over, like overheard me telling this story. And they're like, well, yeah, but like, you know, the goose is federally protected. So if you kill the goose, it's like a federal crime. I was like, if the goose comes after my kids, I can find a way to have the discussion about the federal crime. Nick's going to plan a knife on that goose. Exactly. Self-defense, I swear. He came at me with that knife and everything. Wiping the prints. I was over there. I was, you know, like I was kind of in and out of consciousness for a second. I don't know what's going on. You know, as soon as I came to, you know, we were just past the goose. But it's reality was walking past the goose. I literally I was pointing to this goose. You stay over there or else things are going to get ugly. We're going to I will I will put the brakes on on this double stroller. We will have words. Were you speaking to the goose in its language? I don't know goose speak. I was just speaking to it like this and very bluntly like, I'm going to take you out. It was hissing at me. So I was hissing back. It's like, here's the deal. You can bite all you want and I know that you're strong and I know that you're heavy and I know that you're going to attack me and I know that I'm probably going to lose. But if it comes to batten down to my babies, you're going to lose. Welcome to Unspoken with Goose and Nick. I have never felt so annoyed by a thing. Like, oh, my gosh, man. You were going to throw down the goose. I was ready to throw down with a goose. It was real. Thank you for bringing this up, Mitch. I like this. You need to get the goose on the podcast. Yeah, it's a story. Wow. Maybe he was going to plant a knife. Had to frame it. It's not going down that way. No, no, no. I'm not going back to jail. Let me see your papers. What do you win for? Disclaimer. I've never been to jail. But no, that was a real thing. That did happen. Of course, you brought up the goose thing. Oh, man. Thank you for bringing the goose thing up. I can't believe I didn't tell you that story. I've never heard that story. We haven't seen each other since, though. I love that story. Yeah, we haven't seen each other since. And that was so real. I was ready to come in and yeah, I was 100% on... Was this just a couple of weeks ago? Yes. Yeah. What? That was on our trip. Yeah, that was on your trip. Okay. So this just happened like a week and a half ago. So that's why I haven't heard it yet. All right. Yeah. So I was going to say if you're holding out on me, and this was like a couple of years ago, then we've got problems. No, I was full-blown, ready to go Jason State them on some goose. Heck, yeah, man. It was not going to be fun for either one of us. That is hilarious. And I mean, I was fully prepared to like break out the smelling salts and like, let's get it on. That's hilarious. I love how you're implying that you just walk around with smelling salts on your person. You don't say that I do. Oh, I walk around with chloroform. Don't do that. That's a whole different animal. Yeah, it's all chloroform. It's so south. What show is it? Where he just has the regular smell of chloroform. You would know. I know what you're talking about. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. So that's the goose story. Oh, man. I could hear that again over and over and I like that. Well, now that it's documented out in the world, you can literally listen to it. I'm going to. Will Mitch listen, though? I'll listen. Well, I don't know. I got to listen to this one. You've got to listen to this one. I was so grumpy with that damn goose. I was ready to start swatting it. Geese can be nasty, man. Dude, yeah. That's what I tried to tell him. He wasn't listening. It was not about that. It was about my babies were involved and I was ready to throw down. If I had to go past this goose and it came after my kids. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, not today. Listen here, goose. This is my house. Look at that explicit. I didn't know. Yeah, I don't get that explicit. But man, that goose had a whole different demeanor that day. He was he was ready to get swatted. I was about to backhand him like that part in Power Rangers, right? In the stratosphere. Anyway, now that you have exposed me as a person that wants to fight a goose. You know what, though? He I like you're smart, Mitch. I see what you did here. What would Winston sound like? What makes you tick? Oh, Nick Goose. Yeah, he got you. He got me. He played his like fiddles. He also knew that I was going to get so grumpy by that stupid goose. So now he's pouting because he had to relive it in his head. No, now I'm starting to think of all the places I went wrong. I was I was ready to start smacking the goose with my ring hand like back up. Backhand? I don't know. Whatever works. It didn't matter. Whatever whatever was whatever makes contact. I mean, realistically, it would be like a windmill thing. There's no no wind there. That's for sure. If you came to it, I would love to be just a bystander in that park. The best part of this whole thing was that there was a person sitting on a bench underneath this bridge that we were walking by. So my wife and her sister go by and they just walk by this person. And this person is just watching me have this conversation with this goose as if I'm in like an episode of Dr. Doolittle where I'm like having a real conversation with a goose. And he's like, well, you know, I mean, you walked by me. So, of course, you made me angry. And I'm like, well, that's not very nice. OK, we don't do that. And he's like, well, you know, and like as if I'm literally in the middle of it. And this guy's just like looking at me. I'm like, dude, thought you were crazy. I'm about to do it. It would have been so awesome, though, if you had looked at that guy like, can you believe the way this goose is talking to me right now? Yeah. Can you believe this guy? Do you hear that? This is ridiculous. You put up with this? There's no way. There's no way. They know I'm from out of town. That's my sick humor. That's what I do to people. That's what I would have done. I can't believe this goose. You see this guy? You see this? This is ridiculous. Yeah, that's a that's a real thing. That happened. So now now that we know that that happened, what's next? Mitch, tell me more. Tell me more about you, man. You've got the wife. You've got the kiddo. Do you have any plans for any more kiddos at all? Do you know? Yeah, you know, early on in the marriage, it was the discussion of, you know, how many do you want? How many do you want? Yeah. We fell on, we think three is a good number, max. Yeah. Maybe we'll get to three, but for sure two, at least. Yeah, great. Awesome. Awesome. What is like? I mean, I know my own experience. Nick knows his own experience. What was it like becoming a dad for you? I remember the initial wife finds out it's just kind of like, hey, I'm pregnant and just immediately all the emotions. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just gave me goosebumps, man. Yeah, I know it's crazy. Yes. Oh, I'm so excited. But then in the back of your head, you're like, oh, am I ready for this? Like, yeah. Am I going to be good at this? Yeah. Am I am I going to make mistakes? Am I going to mess this kid up? Yes. Am I going to? You start going through your own experience as a child. Yeah, yeah. And then you try and make that. I don't know if that's good, bad, and different. Sure. So it's funny you say that because I think the whole thing with me was I realized there was a big oh crap moment. Like a big oh crap moment. Really excited, like you said, but also really scared. So I think for me, it was the same question of, am I ready for this? But I started like when my wife and I had the conversation about kids, it was not, are we ready? Because we're never going to be ready. It was, are we prepared to have kids? Like, are we in a position where we think we can do this right? Because there's definitely a time in the beginning of our marriage we were not. Right. I think I would say like a lot of people are, of course. That's not uncommon. But and I wish that's the way I would have thought of it. Not like, oh, am I ready? Because it's like, am I ready personally and like mentally and everything? But then it's also like the financial aspect of like. Of course. You've got to be smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And things change. Yep. Things change, man. Being a parent is a whole different animal. Yeah. No matter what that looks like, any capacity. Yeah. Well, but then you get there and you're like, oh, so glad this happened. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It is cool. Awesome. Exciting. All the emotions, even when you're up at two in the morning with them. Yeah, please just go back to sleep. I'm tired. You're tired. I remember when I had and I'll tell you both this because your kids are a lot younger than mine, which shifted me in my frame of thought. You know, there was a there was a time way back when I had both the boys and I'm a good human being, right? Like I was a good human being, but I was making some really bad choices. We know. So, yes. And I had a friend tell me, you know, with kids, you get and this isn't to scare you guys or scare anybody that's listening. It's to make you it's to open your mind up and go, oh, man, it's going to soften you up if it hits you the right way. And it softened me up with your kids. You get up until the age of 12 to mold them right into the type of human being you want them to be because at 13, they're done. They're not listening to you anymore. Because number one, yeah, they're teenagers and they don't want to listen to you. But also, like, that's just how their brains work. Yes. At 12, 13, your your molding is done. Your habits are done. So it really softened me up to a person I didn't know existed where, okay, I do want to lead you. I don't want to tell you, right? I don't want to boss you around. I want to lead you to the right choice, but also let you make a mistake, right? As long as the mistake isn't going to hurt you or kill you, I'm going to let you burn. And that's okay. I'm going to be right here to make you all better. And it shifted. So I'll let you guys know as your kids grow up, you get 12 solid years to really send home what you want to send home to them. And I think there's still things that obviously I'll be able to get through with my oldest as he comes up on teenage years now. But like that initial, it's weird to think about, man, like how he will be as a father has been molded already in his body, in his brain, which crossed my fingers. I think I've done a pretty good job. Best of my ability. And I know we said this on the last episode. I got to be okay with okay, and I got to move on. And as long as I've taught him that, we're good. He can get mad at me. I can get mad at him. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. And kids are awesome, man. They are super cool. And I've met a lot of guys, and I'm sure you guys have too, that like the title. Well, I feel like with my generation younger, like I see it on social media all the time. They announce their dad. They go get the new balances, like the old school. These are what your grandpa, your dad fanny pack, the jorts. As soon as they find out their dad, it's, oh, I got to go get all this. Yeah. Dad mode activated. I'm a dad now. This is the vibe. It's true. Yeah, it's true. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. You got to start clicking your tongs before you use them. Dad jokes. You got to annoy them. You got to annoy them. You got to embarrass them. If my boys are listening, which I'm sure they are right now, I embarrassed the hell out of them. But you have to, right? Dad tax. Dude, dad tax is real. Yes. Halloween for every 10 pieces of candy. I charge 20%. So I get to. That's so fair. That is so fair. But we were at spring training. You're just eating everybody else's food and having treats and everything. We're at spring training and the flex cam comes on. No, man. I so wish we had a video. I ripped my shirt off. Hensley, Madden, and my wife will not speak to me for two innings. That's, you know, the best thing about baseball is two innings could be a long time or a short amount. It felt like forever. Dude, they would not talk. You guys want to go get a snack? Looking around, well, it was funny because about two innings later, Hensley knows exactly who it was. I can't remember who it was. Threw a ball up over the net. Oh, nice. You know, and I catch it. Now everybody wants to talk to dad again because dad got the ball. And I'm like, sorry, guys, can't hear you. I can't hear you over my muscles flapping in the wind. Oh, man, it was so great. That is awesome, dude. See, that's a great wholesome story. That's going to be you one day. That's going to be you. That's you, Mitch, one day flex cam at a professional baseball game. Embarrass them. Oh, I will. It's so much fun. 100%. And it's just like a fun thing. It's a rite of passage, too. It's good core memory. You know, when you embarrass them, it's core memory, man. Core memory. Unlocked. You don't. I remember all the times my dad embarrassed me. My dad can do this awesome gorilla walk. And I know he's going to hear this and go, oh, shoot. Now everybody knows, dude, he would do that. We'd be in public. We'd be at the mall. And my dad would just start doing the gorilla walk. OK, that's his nickname. I know. You said it. Oh, you told the story. Yeah. Told the story to the world. This guy has the most beautiful gorilla walk. And now as a dad myself, I'm like, that is the most beautiful thing ever. Teach me your ways. I need to know. I need to know. I am just a student. But he used to do that crap. And we'd be like, oh, my god. Here he goes again. But he also is really good. And Hensley's really good at this now. He could walk by like a road sign and make you think that he hit his head on it. Nice. And people will flip out and go, oh, my gosh, sir, are you OK? Yeah, I'm fine. And he'll go on to the next one and do it to the next group of people. And somebody put that there. It's awesome, man. It's epic. So Mitch, man, where are you at in life? What's it like in the world of Mitch today? If you could just if you could just give a word of what describes you today right now, what would that be? One word, one word. I will also accept the hyphenated word. I'd say excited. Well, I like that new position. It's awesome home. Yeah, kind of going through a lot of excitement. Yeah, that's a word for you. You got a lot of cool things on your plate right now. A lot of opportunity still kind of in there that I mean, we all do. It's not that we don't. But the reality is that you're in a really cool position right now, which is really neat. You get to do a lot of cool things with that. And you can choose to stick with that. You choose not to stick with that. But I think it's kind of the whole point of really talking about your path to where you are now is like there's so many options, man. And it's just about what works for you and your family and how that works. As a whole, right? Like you don't have to just do what somebody tells you to do. Right. That's not necessarily the answer, right? It's got to be something that works for you guys. And that's awesome. Well, that's what's crazy about the transition to having your own family. Yes, 100 percent. You don't really go out like my wife and I, when we first got married and as we were dating, we were like the home bodies. Yeah, like I didn't want to go out. Yeah, kind of wanted to stay and hang out together. So just kind of doing all that. And things change. Things change. Yeah, yeah. Completely lost my train of thought there. I'm sorry. No, it's all good. They do. They do change. And it's interesting to see. It's definitely interesting. And I think of that like a lot. And now as your little one gets a little bit older, because we're in this right now experiencing it like, you know, getting out, wanting to go to parks and do things with them just to explore the world is a really fun stage. And see their eyes. Yeah. Watching their eyes light up. Well, that's my favorite thing. Like when I get home and just sit down with him and just watch him play, because he's kind of at that stage where he's just starting imagination. Right. Yeah, yeah. I love watching him get his cars and he's just making a little. Yeah. Isn't that cool? And then he does the tire screech because that's what I do with the cars. I know we all do it. Except he's transitioned from the tire screech to just full on screaming. Yes, just. I love that. Now I'm trying to teach him the crash noise. So when he hits his car. Yeah. Heck, yes. Oh, that's awesome, man. See, I'm down with that. I'm down with that. I'm ready for my little guy to get a little bit older and start playing with cars and trucks and stuff and seeing how he kind of interacts with it. That'll be a lot of fun. Oh, yeah. So there's something and I know I didn't like run this by Nick or anything, but there's kind of a there's a thing I want to start doing when with the guest and it's kind of like my little wisdom time. You know, and I'm not a know-it-all. I'm not some mental health expert, but I like people knowing their worth. I think is my my big thing is I fought with self-worth issues for so long that I hope you're proud of yourself. Right. And I just hearing your journey from start to finish and where you're at and now you're with the kiddo and be proud of yourself every day. Right. Like how do you unwind? Right. We tried to cover that. Right. Well, sometimes I have a stiff drink or sometimes I do that. Just sit back and be proud. Yeah. Right. You did. I know it's cliche, but you know, I did my best today and I know we've covered this before on previous episodes with the 100% rule. Like, right. Your 100% looks different every day. Right. What's in your tank today that you can give? Just give it. Right. You know, be proud. Be proud of the journey and try to leave something behind for your family. They go, he was actually really proud of himself and he should be. This is what he did. And and go on and smile, man. So appreciate it. Yeah. I was hoping it didn't go the opposite direction where you're going to give him like a like a value score. It's like, you know, your worth is like a 5.3. Yeah, right. When you brought up the 100% and like all of that, are you guys familiar with Bluey? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So apparently a lot of parents online are mad about how the parents are portrayed in the show and how like they're like, oh, they're so awesome. But like, you can't do that all day. But then it's like, if you realize that that show is only, what, 10 minutes? Yeah. You can be awesome for 10 minutes in the day. That's all your kids are going to remember. Right. Is that 10 minutes where you were fun. Yes. And then you can kind of go back to how the day goes. Bingo. Yeah. Well, yes. Yeah. Bluey only portrays good moments. It doesn't show you the actual bedtime or the kids waking up and. Yes. Right. Exactly. The real struggles. Yeah. Blowing out your diaper and. Dinner time. We're throwing food all over the ground. Oh, gosh, man. Yeah. You ready? What are we doing? I just need to know if you're ready or not. I buttered him up, dude. We're ready. Full send. I mean, essentially it's a yes or no, but I'll accept other variations of yes or no. Hyphenated is fine. Hyphenated is okay. Like a yes. Welcome to the lightning round. Lightning round. Voice effects are fun, right? That's awesome. Mitchell, we're going to start out pretty basic. If you were going to compete in something in the Olympics, what would you compete in? I've got my pick for him, but I'm going to let you do it. I want to just you know what summer or winter doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Curling. Curling. That looks like pretty nimble on the old ice. Are you ultimate? You're a curler. That's what I had for him. That's like your dad's got around with their buddies. They're like, let's go drink a beer. Just go out on the ice. There you go. Yes. So you'll have to let us know if this is true. I've heard that there are bars in Michigan that have curling. Yeah, I think. No, there are. Yeah. And I think there's one that opened up pretty close to where my parents live. Oh, cool. Actually. Yeah, no, I think. Well, now we're going to have to head up to Nick's parents house. But they have a curling. They have curling clubs all over the place. Yeah. Curling club. There you go. That's good. Honestly, Mitch, that's what I had picked for you. You know why? Because we're a bunch of dads sitting here. That's why. Nick, you're telling me we couldn't put a curling team together. We could put a curling team. Is there a curling club here in Kansas City? I doubt it, but we could be the first dude. There's plenty of ice rinks. Nick, Nick, curling club. Yeah. Featuring Mitch. I'll get the broom. All right. You supply the brooms. And we'll supply the ice. With a bad curl. Is that what they call it? Like a roll? Like people just come in. It's like we open up at four. People come in at 401. We just have the hose out. Come on in. We're going to fix that up. Yeah. Don't mind the goose in the corner. Yeah. No, yeah, that's Fred. He doesn't care. He might yell at you, but. Yeah, he's just grumpy. He's just grumpy. He's mad at everybody. He named him Randy. Nick, that is awesome. I love you, Randy. All right, next. If there was a movie written about your life, what would it be called? And who would play you as the actor? Who would play Mitchell? Let's go Jack of all trades for the title. OK, I like that. I like it. Who would play me? Just because he's one of my favorite actors. Let's say John Goodman. Oh, yeah. Love John Goodman. So do I. Great choice. Did not see that coming. I like that, too. I am going to make him look a little younger, but. That's all right. We're past that. No, he's a city guy, too, isn't he? I actually don't know. I do not know. Is he? I'm not sure. Pretty close or close. We could probably figure that out. Yeah, he's from Missouri. I know that. Interwebs will let us know. Dude, that's a great pick, though. I like him. That is a great pick. All right, next. What's your go-to dad joke? It's not a dad bod. It's a father figure. Oh, I like it. I like that. I get down with that. Yeah, I like that. That's more like a lifestyle choice. What do you do for a living? I curl. Yeah, I just go curling all the time. You look at the last curling team for the USA. Oh, yeah, the stashes and the mullets, man galore. Absolutely. Yes, we're all at Taco Bell one night. It was all like, hey, man, you want to start this curly team? Yeah, man, let's go. We just need to get out of the house. Yeah. Hang out. Yeah, totally worked out. Curling. Yeah. What are we going to do going curling? Wives just think we're at the gym. It's like, yeah, absolutely, honey. And it turns around. It's like, wow, look at that guy. He's really getting into it. Like he's focusing on himself. He's going to start getting fit. Comes home 18 beers deep, and he's got a broken thumb. Crap. Fell down on the ice a couple of times, but everything's going to be all right. Gosh. You know there's only one place in the world they get the granite for those? Scotland. Oh, yeah. I did know that. Yeah. I didn't know it was from Scotland, but I did know it was like one place. That's one quarry in Scotland. That's awesome. Thanks, Dad. My dad told me that. Nice. His dad probably told him this is like generational knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. She's kept getting passed down. Yep. And one day you'll pass it on. I will pass that on. You will. Yeah. I hope they're not listening. That's going to be a real bummer. Well, if they're rolling their eyes right now, if they're listening, they're like, oh gosh, he's going to tell us that later. That's exactly right. You ready? Oh, yeah. Are you sure? Just shoot. All right. Fire it away. What is your most useless talent? This is a good one. Heavy hitter. Your most useless talent is being a heavy hitter. No, it's you're asking the heavy hitting questions, Nick. This is heavy hitting. This is real transformational stuff. People are listening. They're like, I'll be damned. This is everything I needed. I had no idea I needed that, but now I know. Can I get an example? Sure. I can 100% of the time with any writing utensil make it look like it is rubber. Totally useless talent, but I think it looks cool. So why not? I'm going to have to start walking by your desk more to see what you're doing with that pen. You guys don't remember doing that in grade school. I remember doing it. Try to make it look like it looks like. Watch this. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, look, look. Exactly. Hey, I'm telling you, that's a very useless talent. I would agree. Approximately zero people can use that to better their day. Unless you're a B list magician. That's true. I could be a B list musician. I could be a B list musician, but that would not be a fun fact. B list magician. On the other hand, that would be that would be something. What would be your magician name? Magic Mitch. Magic Mitch. Man, I was going to say, did you end up getting that spot on the Chippendales you were hoping for? Is that the sequel? Yeah, that's the sequel. It's his less attractive brother. It's like Sharknado seven. It's like Magic Mitch. So it looks like we've been cast. We're good. You guys made it. You made it. We are. Sweet. Magic Mike is in Vegas. Magic Mitch is in some Podem town. I love that. Club Neo Show. Yeah, Club Neo Show. Oh my gosh. With DJ Velvet and the Smooth Boys. Although when you say Club Neo Show, it reminds me of when I was at Coffeeville and the only fun thing to do is go into Oklahoma and find like clubs. So we'd go into Tulsa and we went into some crazy clubs. Just what a random situation to have explained. The Coffeeville days is a whole nother story. That's a whole different. It's a whole different animal. We could. It's another episode. That's another episode. Shout out, Juco. All right. All right. Let's go with Whistling for Useless. OK, OK. I like that. Fun to do. A noise that everybody can hear it. I can make a like a raindrop sound. That is ridiculously impressive, though. That is so accurate. It's gross how perfect that is. It's blowing your rubber pencil trick out of the water. Absolutely. Absolutely. That was a talent show right now. He won. He totally won. A hundred percent. He totally won. I lost. I'm willing to accept that. At least I won against the goose. Yes, you did. You didn't even fight the goose. That's because the goose knew that I meant business. OK, when I explained it, I said, here, listen here, goose. Here's the situation. I still can't get over Mitch saying he would have planted a knife on that thing. Yeah, that was a good point. It's a good point. You had to make it look like something. Oh, my gosh. I mean, anything is self-defeats at that point. That that is wild and super importantly impressive. All right. So next, if you could create a holiday, what would it be? And how would you celebrate it? Can we just make the Super Bowl a holiday at this point? I mean, it pretty much. Yeah, right. But let's get the next day off of work. OK, that's fair. It is always on a Sunday. Super Bowl Monday. Super Bowl Monday. Yeah. This is my petition. Make it happen. I like that. Give us the day off. That needs to happen. If you had a theme song for your life that played every time you entered a room, what would it be? Do the Cheers theme. The Cheers theme. That's an interesting choice. I like that. It's interesting and it's wholesome. I like that. Yeah, it is. You walk in. Who can be mad if you walk into that song? Nobody. Nobody. Everybody knows it. Everybody. Yeah. Nobody's mad at that. No. Well, now we have to ask your question that you knew you wanted to answer. What's your favorite mythological creature? What sound does it make? Let's go unicorn. OK. Like it. What sound does a unicorn make? That was very good. That was really good. Practicing that with my kid as we read those animal books. Oh, that is so true. Oh, my gosh. Had months of practice. Oh, my gosh. That's awesome. Speaking of books, have you gone through the Little Blue Truck? Not yet. Yeah. Yep. 100%. So good. Got to do it. So good. I'll have to check that out. Yeah, it's great. Yep. I could do my pig for you. I would love to do the pig. I don't know if that's coming through good or not. Borderline gross, but it sounds exactly right. I can do the pig squealing. All right. Yeah, I can't do any of that. Got to do it now. I don't have any special talent. I have no special talent. Nick, I made the pig noise. He got the squeal. Can you do a pig call? There's one of those. Do they make this? Is this like a wooden? Think of Arkansas. Their call. I don't know how familiar you are with the University of Arkansas. Here, piggy piggy. Here, piggy piggy. I don't have any idea what you're talking about. So come on, Nick. Let's hear it. No. That was easy. I nailed it. You're going to edit that later to make it look like you made the noise. Exactly. Yeah. Just throw your voice on top of it. Sound exactly like it. All right. Last one. Would you rather now reminding you this is a would you rather? Okay, fight one horse size duck or 100 duck size horses. Can we change it to geese? Sure. If that's what floats your boat and you have 100 knives, whatever it takes, man. I love it. Could you repeat that question one more time? You had to fight. Would you rather fight one horse size duck or 100 duck size horses? 100 duck sized horses. Why? Because I'm going to wear the heaviest boots I have. Just start kicking. That's fair. But what if they just get into the air and they're like, oh, yeah, oh, and fly back at you. Horse size. Oh, wait. You said the opposite. Duck size horses. You're right. I'm fighting horses, not. Yeah, they roll around. That's fair. That's a fair point. Yeah. I mean, my point still remains that it's super important to understand your limits. I don't think I could take on a horse size duck. No, I don't think I could take on a horse. I don't want that either. I definitely couldn't take on a horse size goose. No chance. At that point, I could probably swallow you whole. Yeah, and it's being a big old jerk. Well, and I guess it also depends on the breed of horse. Like, are we talking Clydesdale? Yeah, sure. This is getting real creative. Clydesdale, Perchon, Arabia. Yeah. Yeah. Is this a giant horse or is this just like. It could be. I was thinking like, I don't know, like Secretariat sized. I don't know. I think Secretariat was pretty big. Secretariat was pretty big. You also had a ginormo heart, which is what made him extra awesome with extra awesome sauce. I did not know that. Well, now you know. Now I know. You learned something. The more you pass that on to your boys, they can pass that on to their kids. That's what Nick's father told him. That's right. That's exactly right. 100%. I came down from generations of my family. Well played, sir. Mitchell, it's been fun. Thanks for hanging out with us. Really appreciate you coming in. Thanks for having me on. Is there any inspirational words you want to say for our listeners out there? I need an inspirational quote. Fire away. You have all the questions. I have lots of this isn't a question. It's more a directive. You're being told. Well, and told. Keep on keeping on. Keep on keeping all life's a garden, man. Dig it. I love it, dude. It's been fun. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thank you so much. Always check us out wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on the Instagram at the underscore unspoken underscore pod. Probably thought I was going to go further again, but I didn't. We can edit that. Yeah, sure. Why not? Yeah, why not? I don't really need to. I just go with it. I like it. Anyway, there is a way to request anybody that you want to see on the show and add topics for us. If you want us to talk about something specific. So let us know. Check out the Instagram anyway. Follow it just so we can make sure we have extra followers because that's awesome to have more people listening. We just think it's really cool. So why not enjoy this with other people? Yep. And it's a lot of fun. And it's a lot of fun. And if you need to figure out who Mitch is, we'll tag him because why not? I guess. It's been awesome, Mitch. Thanks for hanging out with us, Mitch. And until next time. We out. We out. We won is the